FRUITS AND NUTS 115 



only one in this group which produces fruit of value. It has 

 been cultivated for centuries in India and was introduced into 

 the Philippines in the sixteenth century. More recently much 

 interest has been shown in the mango in Florida, Porto Rico, 

 Cuba, and Hawaii. The mango is a beautiful evergreen tree, 

 with dense foliage, entire leathery lanceolate leaves, and grace- 

 ful panicles of small reddish-yellow or green flowers. The 

 fruit is borne in pendant clusters on long pedicles and varies 

 in size from 2 or 3 ounces to 3 pounds in weight, according 

 to variety. The tree bears a crop of fruit each year or occa- 

 sionally two crops will be borne on a few trees in the mango 

 orchard. The mango is now widely distributed throughout 

 the Tropics, where it occurs in a great range of varieties. 

 About 600 varieties have been mentioned as occurring in India 

 alone and new varieties are constantly appearing by the nat- 

 ural variation of seedlings and as a result of cross-pollination 

 in orchards of mixed varieties. Some of these variety names 

 are doubtless synonymous but the number of horticulturally 

 distinct varieties is unquestionably large. 



The mango is nowhere grown in large continuous orchards 

 but almost everyone in the Tropics has a mango tree. Some 

 of the most delicious varieties of mangos come from the 

 Philippines, where the chief varieties are Carabao, Pico, and 

 Pahutan. Some of the noted and most highly esteemed Indian 

 varieties of mango are Alphonse, Totapari, Cambodiana, Mul- 

 goa, Mulgoba, Sandersha, Brindabani, etc. In addition to these 

 well known improved varieties of superior flavor and other 

 merits, there are hundreds of varieties of seedling trees, some 

 of which are of rather high merit but which are likely to be 

 full of fiber and permeated with the flavor of turpentine. 



The esteem in which the mango is held as a fruit for eating 

 in a fresh condition depends almost entirely on the varieties 

 with which acquaintance has been had. If one's notion of the 

 mango came from attempts to eat the ordinary stringy tur- 

 pentiny seedling, the mango would be considered as a practi- 



